Dosage.

You've heard the expression "to self-medicate with food," right?  Generally thought of as a bad thing.  Emotional eating and all that.  Causes you to envision a lonely woman plowing through a pint of ice cream straight from the carton, or some such thing.

It's not all bad, really.  Food does affect your mood, because it does affect your body.  And sometimes it's simpler than that.  

You have a sore throat?  A cup of hot tea with a generous dollop of honey will really do you good.

Low on iron?  Have some beef at every meal.

Pregnant lady with a sudden attack of nausea at bedtime five hours after dinner?  TRY EATING SOMETHING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

So as I was downstairs in my pajamas finishing off my bowl of plain yogurt and blueberries, which I wasn't exactly hungry for but I thought might help me feel better and get to sleep, I found myself wandering into the kitchen to refill my bowl.

Now why am I doing this?  I wondered, even as I scooped into the yogurt carton.  I wasn't hungry to begin with.  I ate what I served myself, and I had a good reason for it.  Now why am I in here getting more?  I  considered it carefully as I started in on the second bowl, and hit on the reason:

Because I don't feel better yet.

That's it.  That's the reason.   I'd decided to eat something because I hoped it might quell the nausea long enough for me to get to sleep.   Well, here I am thirty seconds after finishing my bowl of yogurt, and I still don't feel all the way better, so I'm eating more.

Funny!  I *might* give it a chance to work, before I give myself a double dose.  If I have a headache, do I swallow a couple of painkillers, think, "Nope, headache still there," and use what's left in my glass to swig down a couple more?  If I have a cough, do I take one spoonful of cough syrup, then go back for seconds when I'm still hacking a couple minutes later?  

No, maybe the problem with self-medication with food isn't so much that we use food as a drug.  Maybe we should use it more like a drug — when we have a problem that food might solve, take the smallest dose necessary, and wait for it to have an effect (or not) before trying something else.  Why should it be different from any other?